Some days ago at Ghatkopar, I was knocked down by a speeding scooter. The guy didn’t look back… I think doing so did not even occur to him. I wasn’t seriously hurt, but it always takes the human mind a long moment to inventory the damage at such times. In that brief space of time, when adrenalin is pouring freely, one can sometimes experience amazing clarity of mind.

So I sat there under the dispassionate gaze of a roadside vegetable vendor, with a mangy doggie sniffing at my pant leg. I did not experience any urgent need to get up and go about my business. In fact, I found myself in deep thought. This state of mind continued till I reached home, and these ramblings are a side product.

So… what is it with this city? I mean yes, we’re busy trying to be a weird, schizophrenic hybrid of a Shanghai, New York and an Egyptian bazaar souk. There is no time to stop and smell either the cow dung or the waxy hothouse roses.

Yes, there’s money to be made, mouths to be fed, loser husbands to be divorced, insurance companies to be sued, pickpockets to be punched out, corrupt politicians that we have ourselves elected to be denounced, local trains to be infused into by sheer mob power (to be spat out on the other side by the same mindless force)… but hey, where’s life?

I recall a thought that came into my mind many years ago, after I returned to Mumbai, following a long spell in a smaller, quieter city. This one came over me while I was hanging on for dear life in a local bound for Churchgate.

It was simply this - “Does this city think that it’s the only place on earth where people actually work?”

We look down with patronizing disdain on the newcomer. Inside, we chuckle derisively when someone with a travel bag on his shoulder asks us for directions to Dadar TT. We’re quick to vociferously dislodge the queue jumper from his lawlessly begotten vantage point two places ahead of us.

We’re completely attuned to the cause of scoring that extra buck, denying the garland hawker a single rupee more than what he, according to us, is entitled to. Good for us. We’re the cream. We’re the winners in the rat race. All hail the Americo-indian dream!!

Then someone gets chewed up by a passing truck on a busy street, or maybe just knocked down by a scooter. We quickly avert our collective gaze, thanking whatever deity is in force on that weekday that it wasn’t us. We know we’re falling short of some more universal standard at such times, but the milling crowd reminds us of our priorities smartly enough. We arrive home drained to the core, having put in four hours of hardcore commuting to do seven hours of work.

Mumbai’s English-medium educated young graduates are making unerring beelines to the HR offices of call centers and shopping complexes, because money is God… future prospects take the hindmost. Every decade, we have another generation of burned-out youngsters struggling to come to terms with a dead-end career. The fake American accent that stood them in such good stead in those air-conditioned sheet glass mausoleums falter and die on their lips.

Mumbai seethes with sweatshops where those who cannot afford even this pathetic route struggle to keep life and limb together. Corrupt politicians assure us that everything will be just fine and dandy if we only cast our vote for them. This city remains the centre of Dawood Ibrahim’s crime kingdom. Much as we hate to admit it, Mumbai’s grassroots economy depends to no uncertain extent on this fact. Everyone, in every sector, has a haunted, harried and subtly hopeless look on his or her face.

There is literally not a single inch of unclaimed and uncontested land left in the central city, and the suburbs are almost spoken for too. All attempts at trying to untangle the traffic snarl are end-stage damage control that buys us a couple of months at the most. The city sends us a clear, unequivocal message when an overenthusiastic monsoon lays bare the inadequacies of terminally cancerous infrastructure.

We have reached saturation point geographically, socially and spiritually. Our weak pretense at savvy urbaneness has lost its convincing power. When we speak of Mumbai, we’re referring to a once moderately sane anthill that has suddenly been kicked, doused in gasoline and set on fire.

I don’t know every yardstick by which winners are defined in this world, but I suspect that we may be found lacking by at least some of them…

Some look for a way out, because there sure as hell is no way back. For many of my friends, leaving the city altogether has been the only option. They have the money to continue staying here, but not the willingness. “What’s the point?” they ask. “Money has no value on this city’s property market, unless you have enough to buy into Malabar Hill or Cuffe Parade. Even then, you’re just buying a sugar-coated version of the same old madness.”

Mumbai’s ‘fighting spirit’ is the mantra. But is it, perhaps, only the tight-lipped, white-knuckled determination to prevail that must have sustained members of the Bataan Death March until they dropped by the wayside? What exactly are we crowing about?

Maybe we should have a new city slogan – LOST OUR WAY – AND PROUD OF IT!!

You must forgive a disillusioned, middle-aged man his bitterness. I know Mumbai has its redeeming factors, but they’re not immediately apparent when you sit there in the dust, unnoticed and unattended by the teeming thousands, and even ridiculed for your temporary inability to match the pace.

I honestly feel that we have little to commend us above any other city in the country. Mumbai’s only true value lies in the fact that it is our home. The legendary opportunities it once had a monopoly over are rapidly being replicated in cities that none of us had even heard of so far.

Some humility and less swagger, guys….?